Stay attuned to the cricket

Tim Lane

THERE'S nothing like popular sport on television - and nothing like the people paid to broadcast it - to inflame opinions during the course of a long season. And it isn't compulsory for the season to have achieved genuine length for the inflammation to occur.

By way of recent example, it was dawn on the second morning of summer when Jonathon Horn's bristling critique of Channel Nine's current cricket commentary crop hit these pages last week. The first weekend in December, back in the day, was about when each season's Test series started.

Not that this is to accuse the author of premature enunciation. Although his piece was characterised by some moaning, I'd be surprised if it didn't have many a reader declaring an excited, ''Yes, yes, yes!'' at the breakfast table.

This column, though, isn't intended to be about the endlessly alluring topic of television commentary. It's about that other electronic medium, the old-fashioned one that even had Shane Warne's tweeting finger busy last week. It's the medium that has carried the cricket around this country since Douglas Jardine and Harold Larwood plotted the downfall of the boy wonder from Bowral.

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The relationship between Australian cricket and radio is a phenomenon of endurance and affection. The ABC's radio cricket coverage is celebrating its 80th anniversary. Year in, year out, it's there, and if its evocative power is slightly dimmed as new communications technology makes the world a smaller place, it nevertheless remains strong.

Something I liked to do during my years broadcasting international cricket for the ABC was to visualise some of the locations from which people might be listening during the Australian summer. They listen, of course, in their homes, but also in their gardens, in cars, on beaches, in tents and in caravan parks; some are comforted and kept company as they listen in hospitals; they listen in the outback; farmers listen on their tractors and harvesters; fishermen listen in boats as they look to make a catch of their own; Australians listen from the bottom end to the top and from the Indian Ocean coast to the Pacific.

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The doyen of Australian cricket commentators, the late Alan McGilvray, had an understated way of reminding his audience of Australia's vastness. Without fail, during his first stint at the microphone from day two onwards in each Test match he broadcast, he would foreshadow that: ''Shortly, I'll go through the details of yesterday's play, particularly for the benefit of listeners in country areas who may not yet have received their morning newspapers.'' McGilvray died in 1996. Had he lived as long a life as Dame Elisabeth Murdoch, he would have turned 103 last Thursday. That very statistic is indicative of an era of broadcasting long passed.

Such a towering figure within the organisation was McGilvray, that he appeared irreplaceable. I'm not sure there's ever been another sports broadcaster in this country who has captured the sound and ambience of his sport as McGilvray did with cricket.

Following his retirement in 1985, inevitably there was a period of searching for a new modus operandi. Neville Oliver and Jim Maxwell emerged as the main men. Into the 1990s, my view - and as a member of the team back then it's hard to be objective - is that this evolved in the form of an increasingly journalistic style of coverage. The acquisition of the late Peter Roebuck was crucial to the achievement of this.

Another decade on, Kerry O'Keeffe arrived. He became ABC radio cricket's biggest personality since McGilvray. Not only a new era, but a cult, had begun. A recent correspondent to the Green Guide observed McGilvray would be rolling in his grave. But times and trends change, and O'Keeffe has generated a strong following.

The death of Roebuck, though, has left the coverage without its counter-balance. Not only have his nonpareil intellect and incisiveness been lost, but these losses have inevitably seen the coverage lean - if not lurch - towards vaudeville. Dealing with this is ABC radio cricket's immediate challenge. And it is an important challenge because, if anything, cricket on the radio is enjoying a renewed relevance. It's even possible that for the endangered species of Test cricket, the old-fashioned medium is the way of the future. The viewing audience - and that means the money - is headed towards the ultra-short game. In most cricket countries, the long game alone doesn't provide a professional sports person's income.

And as most people in a time-poor world find it increasingly difficult to indulge themselves in the fullness of television coverage of Test matches, let alone attend the ground, there remains one sure way of staying abreast of the game. It is hardly less relevant today than it was in the 1930s. It is a way that has stood the test of time.

It is the radio. When it comes to cricket, Marconi's late-19th century invention continues to have a bright future.